


Letdown

by leavemewiththerazor



Category: nothing nowhere.
Genre: Other, Songfic, letdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leavemewiththerazor/pseuds/leavemewiththerazor
Summary: He tosses in bed, turns over, thinks, I ruin all the things that I love.





	Letdown

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based off of the song Letdown by nothing, nowhere. Parts of this story are taken from lyrics in that song, so not all of the phrases are mine.

He remembers the year he had told her goodbye. It had been the day before her birthday, but he couldn’t wait any longer. There was a sense of urgency in his already broken heart, in the way that her lies had tormented him, ripped him to pieces. He had to end it. 

So he did. 

And he remembers the way she cried in her parents garage. It had been nearly four in the morning - he had driven there through the night, could hardly wait to end the relationship that was dying slowly and taking him violently with it - and she had sat herself in a folding chair, unable to stand. He remembers the way she put her head in her hands and cried. Just cried. 

But she had never asked why. She had never argued, begged him to reconsider. She knew as well as he did. That it was over, had been over for a long time. 

He sits now in his Boston hotel room, tired and alone. The city is like an old, distant friend - something he used to know well, something that knows his pain, his scars, something that time has pulled him away from. And everything here reminds him of her. She is everywhere, and he can feel her creep inside of his skin, his bones, deep into the very core of himself where he can’t reach down far enough to pull her out of. He closes his eyes, wishes he could sew them shut.

_I could call her,_ he thinks. _But I don’t know what I could say._  

The room is cold, everything is cold here, but it’s not the air. It’s her. He lays down on the bed, turns out the light, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. The memories are dizzying, sending a wash of vertigo over him. He wants to forget. 

Inside of the extremities of his pain he finds that he is overcome by anxiety. His limbs feel weak, his fingers tremble. The blood inside of his body feels charged, electric, and he is losing touch on reality, unable to pull himself from the fear, the pain, the constant remembrance of her. He can hardly place what it is he is afraid of. Perhaps he is scared that he will never see her again. Or maybe it is the fear that he will. 

He can’t imagine what would happen should he see her face one more time. Would he touch her hand, brush the skin on her arm, tell her he is sorry? And would she forgive him? Would she smile, tell him she missed him, make everything okay again? 

And what would happen next? Would they kiss long and slow - chapped lips on smooth skin - or would they talk for hours, stay up until dawn like they used to? Or would he let them fall apart again, revel blindly in their destruction as though it is as beautiful as the creation of it itself. 

He tosses in bed, turns over, thinks, _I ruin all the things that I love._

He could make amends. She wouldn’t have to forgive him, but he could still apologize to her, make things right. And then maybe he could stop thinking about her. Maybe that would stop this pain, this anxiety, this ceaseless frenzy of something like death inside of him. 

But he’s had enough. The thought is only that: a fleeting thing of the imagination, something that he will never act upon. 

There are too many things in his life like that. Too many things that he has ruined, condemned himself to out of inaction. He shakes his head, feeling his under-eyes begin to wet. He can’t think about all of that. 

Not right now. 

And god, he thinks that he should feel alive by now. Twenty-something years old and happiness is still a stranger, a foreign thought, an object so desired and yet so far out of reach. And he tries to coincide, to live with this pain inside his chest, but sometimes it all gets to be too much. 

And right now, it is too much for him to lay in this bed and feel that bleating lack of _something_ weigh down on his shoulders, his back. That void inside of him. He lays flat on the bed, the damp in his eyes growing.

On the ceiling, his faults are laid out against the stark white of the paint. They are real and crystal clear as ever. 

Too much, it is too much. He sits up in bed, wipes his nose on his sleeve and then stands up. He is still dressed, having laid down in bed with his jeans and a t-shirt on, and now he gropes in the dark for a jacket, slips it on over his head, and feels for his keys. They are cold and heavy in his hands, and he realizes now how clammy his hands have become, how shaky they still are. 

He leaves the hotel in a hurry, all but slamming the door to his room shut behind him and taking the stairs two at a time. 

Outside, the air is cool. It feels good against his face, which is hot and flushed with the sobs that he is choking down, forcing to stay in his chest, the bottom of his throat. The leather seats of the car are cold against him, but he is too distracted to notice. He turns the key in the ignition and pulls out of the parking lot. 

The old neighborhoods are just like he remembered them. The houses haven’t changed; the stores, the parks, the streets: all the same. 

There is the house that Lopez used to live in. Where they used to spend long hours in front of a television with controllers in their hands. Where they used to meet with skateboards in hand. And there is the store that he used to work in. Long hours at a cash register, talking to the hundreds of people who needed help every day.

This is the neighborhood she used to live in. Here is the park where they had their first kiss. And here is the restaurant where they had their first date. 

Her old house is only a couple of blocks away, and the adrenaline he feels coursing through him sends waves of heat, of electricity through him. He wants to be closer to the house. He wants to be further away from it. He wants to drive slower, take his time getting there. But he drives faster. 

The streets are dark, lit only by the streetlights dotting the corners. It starts to rain, the water mixing with the faint lights, bleeding streams of dim golden yellow across the windshield. 

The rain makes him think of the time she had asked him to go for a walk for him. When she told him the truth for the first time, and it hurt him so badly he could hardly breathe. It had started to rain then, large, full droplets of water coming down heavily, landing on her already wet eyelashes, washing away the tears that had gathered at the corners of his lips. 

If only the rain could have washed away her lies. Or maybe it was the truth he wanted to wash away. Maybe he wanted the rain to drown his own weakness, his readiness to quit. 

Sitting in the car now, he starts to cry, the stifled sobs making their way up and out of his throat, perching on his lips where they roll out in heavy moans. 

The pain is like a knife in his chest, sharp and breathtaking, and as he gets closer to the house, it gets worse. And with the worsening pain, his foot presses down on the accelerator harder, the car lurching forward, moving faster. 

One block now. He passes a car on his left, the headlights shining brightly into his own car, but he hardly notices. He is numb now to everything outside of his head and the neighborhood - the tears on his face, his hands on the steering wheel, his foot on the pedal. 

Faster, now, and he is almost there, not stopping or even slowing as he passes the house on the corner of her street, the stop sign adjacent to the car perpendicular to him. 

He hits the car fast and hard, a heavy metallic shriek sounding as his front bumper tears into the side of the other car. He is jerked forward, pulled sideways by the inertia of the other car, and swerves to compensate. But he loses control, and the car spirals out, moves forward down the street as it flips once, lands on its side. 

He takes his last breath outside of the house where he broke her heart and became her letdown. 


End file.
